Aqaba Container Terminal (ACT), the sole container terminal in the Kingdom, has announced that giant Danish shipping line, Maersk, has a new weekly service to Aqaba calling directly to North America. This will be in addition to the weekly service presently calling from the Far East.

Commenting on this unprecedented step, ACT CEO, Mr. Jerry Rickcord said: “Having a globally renowned shipping line calling the terminal directly twice a week is a remarkable milestone for the company. This reinforces our leading position in the region and proves our constant efforts to raise the bar of our facilities and provide our customers with high-tech worldwide standard services.”

Mr. Rickcord went on saying that ACT is keen to tie up with leading international liners with reliable coverage and having two services per week for the same line which gives Aqaba very good coverage.

Cargo to Aqaba increased over the last year and the terminal has become one of the best entry points for the transit cargo to Iraq. The throughput volume year to date has increased by 38 percent over the same period last year. This increase is due to the growth in the local market and to more transit cargo coming in for Iraq through Aqaba. The export volume in ACT reached 21397 TEU in August, whereas the import reached 20121 TEUS, and the transit cargo reached 4301 TEUS.

As a response to the current pressure on ports in the area, ACT cooperated with all shipping lines to ensure that operations continue even if the vessels are not able to maintain vessel schedules.

Maersk line, which is a division of A.P. Moller – Maersk Group, offers second-to-none, door-to-door transportation service and has a fleet with more than 470 container vessels and over 1,900,000 containers. The line provides various containers’ sizes and types that suit different needs adding up to its environment friendly vessels.

The new service will call Aqaba on a weekly basis mainly to load export cargo and the vessel will proceed directly to the United State with very good transit time to cater for QIZ exports.